SENATOR CHARLES SUMNER SIGNED DOCUMENT: ANTI-SLAVERY QUOTE WRITTEN IN HIS OWN HAND

Autograph document signed by Charles Sumner. Washington, D.C., 14 March 1857. 1 page, approx. 5 x 6 1/2 in., adhered to 6 x 7 1/2 in. 

Previously sold at History for Sale. 

An incredible anti-slavery quote from Charles Sumner. The quote reads in full: "Ours is a noble cause; nobler than that of our Father, inasmuch as it is more exalted to struggle for the Freedom of others than for our own." 

A leading advocate for the abolishment of slavery, Sumner (1811-74) was elected to the U.S. Senate in 1851 as part of the Free Soil Party before it merged into the Republican Party. He represented Massachusetts in the Senate, where he devoted his efforts to opposing the idea of "slavocracy." This culminated in him being viciously beaten by Representative Preston Brooks in 1856 on the Senate floor. Brooks beat him with a cane, knocking Sumner unconscious. It took Sumner three years to recover, yet he was still re-elected to the Senate, in which his constituents left his desk empty as a reminder of the incident. 

During the Civil War, Sumner led the Radical Republican faction, which thought President Abraham Lincoln was too moderate toward the South. It was also during this time that Sumner served as the chair of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, in which he worked to ensure the United Kingdom and France did not intervene on the Confederacy's behalf. After the war ended and Lincoln was assassinated, Sumner was a leader in the congressional efforts to granting equal civil and voting rights for freedmen and preventing ex-Confederates from gaining power. President Andrew Johnson heavily opposed Sumner's ideals, which ultimately played a role in the former's impeachment in 1868. 

[Civil War, Union, Confederate] [Manuscripts, Documents, Letters, Ephemera, Signatures, Autographs] [African Americana, African American History, Black History, Slavery, Enslavement, Abolition, Emancipation]